25 is a big number.

While 20, a coccoon appears to reveal a beautiful butterfly.

21 would have been the first real taste of responsibility.

22 would see one starting to get used to this freedom.

23 is a year of difficult doubts and decisions.

24 is a year of ups and downs and of trial and error.

Finally 25 shows a different, stronger, and more confident individual.

Travelling, meeting people, learning new things about our culture, I am at a point where I have never been as patriotic, and choked with love of the country as I have ever been in any other point of my life.

But on this day, I don’t rejoice. I feel strangely terrified.

This nation had seen difficult times, and that difficult time has not passed. Perhaps, it was only a taste of what is to come. A warning for the generation that have not seen what freedom was like before 1984.

I was in Kiulap one day, and one poster never left my mind. The sunset featured on the National Day poster is like a symbol. We are entering night. It will get darker and darker. Perhaps there will be a full moon lighting, and leading our way. But it will be a very long time before we reach dawn.

What will my generation be faced with? I am terrified. We must pray for that light from the moon. Because when I think of the light of that moon, I am hopeful. Just like when I see and picture shelter under that golden umbrella, I am hopeful.

In the midst of music and dance, celebrations and jubilations, what really are we celebrating? A number. Focus our attention to the sunset, and the impending darkness, and please celebrate what our freedom has enabled us to receive.

Free high quality education, nearly free high quality healthcare, a high standard of living, and freedom to achieve dreams that our forefathers have never even dreamed of.

If darkness is to come, pray for a bright, shiny, beacon of hope, that is the moon. When we are hopeful, we are not afraid.

Untuk Brunei ku tercinta, selamat menyambut hari kebangsaan yang ke dua puluh lima.